NFL Betting Picks: Cleveland Browns +1.5 at Denver Broncos

The Denver Broncos' Empower Field literally sits a mile above sea level, representing the highest altitude stadium in the National Football League. This is important because, it has been demonstrated, at least in some sports, that teams residing in higher-altitude geographies enjoy improved win rates versus teams that play at lower elevations. Explaining this phenomenon, a study of South American soccer by McSharry (2007), for instance, postulates that lowland teams are less able to acclimate to high altitudes, resulting in diminished physiological performance.

At odds with this observation though, we have observed evidence of a reverse altitude effect in select scenarios.

Betting against Denver in this spot has delivered a statistically significant 22% long-term return on investment, and has submitted losing records in only four seasons over the examination period.

To rationalize the success of this set of criteria, we hypothesize that, with the aforementioned finding regarding the advantage of highland teams well socialized by now, the betting market tends to overestimate the impact of altitude as a factor for determining the Broncos' home field advantage. We speculate that the market's recency bias exacerbates this mispricing particularly when Denver hosts inferior teams, resulting in spreads that are too big and reduced cover rates.

Accordingly, we are counting the Dorian Thompson-Robinson-led Browns as modest dogs among our week 12 NFL betting picks.

Happy betting!!